The French administration in charge of the public procurement, and DINSIC (the state agency in charge of the IT ) have renewed the two contracts for free software support services. Both contracts were awarded to the French free software services provider Linagora.
The contracts, originally initiated in 2012, provide support the French ministries and some governmental agencies.
The first contract is valued at EUR 3,4 millions. It provides support for forty-two ministries and public administrations and is based on a pooling schema to help decrease prices. This method was initiated in the former contract, which covered only seventeen ministries at this time.
Hundreds supported application
Terms of the this contract have been modified to better meet needs, said a source close to the procurement process, on the French site LeMagIT.fr. The new contract lists 200 applications, one-third less than its predecessor (319). OBM (messaging), Maarch (Document management) and LibreOffice are among the most-used.
The new interministerial contract defines groups of applications based on usage, said the source who declined to be named. For example, office softwares are gathered in a bundle to help ministries better identifying the tools they are looking for.
The second contract provides software support to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Support is for 275 software application
“Usage is converging”
According to LeMagIT.fr, originally, the two former contracts were awarded to two separate companies to encourage competition. But now, usages in ministries are converging, it is said.
The first, interministerial, contract is valid for three years and can be extended by one year. The second contract, for the Ministry of Finance, runs for one year and can be renewed three times.
Linagora told LeMagIT that it is also working at consolidating the two contracts and eventually provide a unique contract when those will be completed.
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